Translator: Sanja Srbljinović Čuček Reviewer: Dima Aghiorly
(Singing) When you were born, you cried
and the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die
the world cries and you rejoice. (Stops singing)
Most people live their lives,
most people go to their graves
with their music still inside them.
This troubling thought is what calls me to the work I do --
midwifing voices into the world.
(Laughter)
Wah-wah!
Your voice is how you get your gifts from inside of you out.
Nothing much happens in this world until someone gives it voice,
either in speaking or in writing.
That's why the words voice and vocation share a common Latin root --
vocare -- which means "to call, invoke, or name".
Wherever you are in your life story,
now is the time for you to bring your gifts to this world.
In my twelve years as an organisational consultant,
every single group I worked with identified the same number-one problem --
communication.
Now, once in a while, communication breakdown is caused
by a toxic person with evil intentions,
but most of the time,
it's the case of well-intentioned people just misunderstanding each other.
A syndrome I like to call woof-woof, meow-meow.
So much miscommunication is caused by how we say what we say.
And this is where voice comes in.
By way of illustration, let me introduce you to two of my voice clients.
Marsha was an up-and-coming leader in a large national corporation,
and she had it all going on.
She was smart, she was great with people,
and she was like, one of those visionary thinkers
who could see the future long before anyone else.
It was just one problem: She had a voice that sounded a lot like this.
Until she did some serious voice work,
(Crushing noise) it was hard to stay in the room with her.
Marsha?
(Laughter)
Marsha, is that you? I think she came.
(Laughter)
Paul began his career working outside as a carpenter,
where he learned to talk like this, you know,
just to get up over power tools.
But then he got promoted to a leadership position
and moved that great big outside voice into an office.
His clients and colleagues were either intimidated
or exhausted by how he said what he said.
Now listen, I know these are two very extreme examples,
but most of us carry unconscious vocal habits
that interfere with us doing our best work.
Voice matters.
Marsha?
(Laughter)
Did you know your voice is telling all your secrets?
Research has shown that the sound of your voice alone
reveals vast amounts of information about you.
Things like your physical size, your state of health,
your mood, even your education level.
Your voice has no concern for your data privacy. None.
Learning to be more deliberate about how you use it
will ensure that the messages you are sending
are the ones you intend.
In a moment, I’m going to invite you to explore your own voices.
Are you ready?
But in the meantime, I'll tell you my story.
It took me a lot of time to find my voice.
I was that timid, awkward kid
that sang in the good choirs and did a little theater,
but I never sang alone in front of anyone ever.
I got dragged kicking and screaming into singing solo jazz in my twenties,
and struggled for years with paralyzing stage fright.
You know, a smarter person might have quit.
(Laughter)
The road that led from that place to today
started at a voice workshop in Minneapolis in the late 1980s.
At the time, I had a very strong story
about who I was as a person, and as a voice.
At the time, I thought my voice (Singing) ended right here,
and what was beyond that was, ah, nothing.
Boy, was I wrong.
The teachers were from the Roy Hart Center,
a group from the South of France
that uses an innovative approach to open up the full range of the human voice.
Now, one of those teachers, Saule Ryan,
took me from where I thought my voice ended (plays a note),
all the way up to here (plays a note).
That distance changed my story and the course of my life.
How else was I wrong about me?
What other gifts were lying dormant in my voice?
I felt like I'd walked out of this tiny closet into a great big mansion,
and what opened the door, was my voice.
I'm here today to open that door for each of you.
So here is how this will work:
We are going to explore the five elements framework --
a tool for unleashing the power in your voice.
I developed this approach by combining
the Roy Hart work with the Union psychology and yoga.
Mostly, I just paid attention to people's voices.
And what struck me is that most of us are using
just a tiny fraction of the vocal range we have available.
Now if we sing, we might use a little bit more.
What lies out here in the realm of sound, is rich with discovery.
(Sings)
(Laughter)
So, here is how this will go:
I'm going to introduce you to five distinct sounds in your voice,
using the elements of earth, fire, water, metal and air.
I'll invite you to sample each sound
by assuming a character that exaggerates it.
So the character will help you really embody that sound now,
and help you remember it later.
Then I'll explain how you can use it in everyday conversations,
and then I'll wind up by showing you some famous people that exemplify that sound.
Are you ready? (Audience) Yeah.
Good.
The earth voice is our first voiceful sample,
and our character for doing that is the pessimistic Neanderthal.
So, just to get a taste of this, try making a yawny sound.
It shouldn't be hard if you've been up with studying late.
OK, try this: (Yawns)
(Audience yawns)
Oh, you're very, very good. All right.
Let's just have a little Neanderthal pity party.
Try this: (Singing) Oh, no.
(Audience) Oh, no.
BM: Oh, that's very good. Oh, no.
(Audience) Oh, no.
BM: And really pathetic now: Oh, no.
(Audience) Oh, no.
Notice how that sound makes you slower and heavier. Yeah.
(Laughter)
The more subtle form of the earth voice
is perfect for projecting authority and getting grounded.
I’m using it now. Do you hear that?
Any time you need to command respect
or stand your ground, earth [voice] is the right choice.
So let’s do a little experiment.
Try saying "No?"
(Audience) No?
No!
(Audience) No!
How you say what you say makes all the difference.
Here are some famous Earth Voices: [Darth Vader, Adele, Leonard Cohen,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maya Angelou] (Laughter)
(Imitating Terminator) I'll be back.
Now we are going to sample the fire voice with the help of Luciano Pavarotti, OK?
So we are going to have a little call-and-response opera
on the topic of lasagna.
(Laughter)
Alright. So try this: (Singing) Lasagna.
(Audience) Lasagna.
BM: Fantastic, very dramatic. Lasagna.
(Audience) Lasagna.
BM: That's fantastic, and the grand finale: Lasagna.
(Audience) Lasagna.
BM: Whoa! You notice how that fills your body with energy
and fills the room with energy as well.
Argh!
(Laughter)
The more subtle form of the fire voice
is perfect for expressing passion and personal power.
I’m using it now. Do you hear that? Say "yes".
(Audience) Yes.
Thank you.
It’s a really good choice for public speaking
or any other time you really need to be seen and heard.
Now Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech
is the perfect example of a fiery delivery, right?
Can you imagine if Dr. King had gotten up there and said:
"I like, have a dream."
(Laughter)
No. (Laughter)
Here is Dr. King and some other famous fire voices:
[B. Raitt, J.Stone, M. Jagger, T. Turner]
Please note that Mick Jagger and Tina Turner have the exact same mouth.
(Laughter)
About that.
Onto our third voice.
We’re going to sample the water voice using our friend Julia Child.
Alright. Try saying this: (Singing in high pitched voice) Hello!
(Audience) Hello!
BM: Hello!
(Audience) Hello!
BM: And a couple of glasses of Chardonnay in
Heeeello!
(Audience) Heeeello!
Now please don’t assume that I am suggesting
you walk around talking like Julia Child: "Heaven forbid!"
(Laughter)
In its more subtle form the water voice sounds like this.
It’s warm and flowing and comforting.
It’s a good choice for when you want to express anything from your heart.
Like, "that sounds hard", or "good job", or "I have bad news".
It’s also the right choice for extending an apology.
We have all heard, "I’m sorry!" in just the wrong tone, have we not?
(Laughter)
Here are some famous water voices: [J. Garland, F. Rogers, B. Streisand,
Archbishop D. Tutu, J. Timberlake]
Now try to imagine if Mr. Rogers had come from the Bronx.
(Imitating) It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood ...
(Laughter)
That would just not work.
(Laughter)
I can hear my mother saying, "Don’t encourage her."
(Laughter)
OK. Onto the fourth voice -- metal.
And I call this sound metal because it’s bright and sharp,
and it cuts through anything.
So to sample this, let’s be irritable Siamese cats, shall we?
Try this: Meeeow.
(Audience) Meeeow.
BM: Great. Meeeow.
(Audience) Meeeow.
BM: Ugly faces help. Meeeow.
(Audience) Meeeow.
BM: Oh my land, that is loud, isn’t it?
The more subtle form of the metal voice
is good for pretty much one thing -- amplification.
It’s the right choice any time you’re having a hard time being heard,
like in a really noisy environment,
or if you’re speaking to someone who’s a little hard of hearing.
I’m using it now. Can you hear that? Thank you.
(Laughter)
And also, if you’re speaking to a large group like this,
and the microphone goes dead,
the metal voice will help you come through loud and clear.
Right!?
(Audience) Right.
Here are some famous metal voices:
[W. Nelson, The Wicked Witch of the West, B. Dylan, D. Parton, F. Drescher]
(Imitating the witch) I'll fix you, my pretty.
Alright. One to go. The fifth -- air.
I know. We all make that sound around babies, don’t we?
And we talk to them there.
So let’s try this.
Let’s sample this voice by saying "Hi" to the baby.
OK. So let’s try this: Hi.
(Audience) Hi.
Good. Hi.
(Audience) Hi.
One more flirt: Hi.
(Audience) Hi.
Do you notice how that kind of lightens up your face, and the room too?
We have dead eyes here in Minnesota, this is a good one for us.
(Laughter)
Now people have a really hard time believing there’s a place
for the air voice in the world of work.
But here are two.
If you want to inspire the imaginations of the people around you,
air is a good choice.
So consider the difference between
(air voice) "I have an idea." and (earth voice) "I have an idea."
It’s also a really good choice for storytelling.
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...
The air voice evokes another place and time
and a delicious sense of mistery.
Do you feel that? Yes! Thrilling!
(Laughter)
Here are some air voices:
[P. Wiliams, T. Swift, S. Robinson, The BeeGees, J. Mitchell]
(Imitating BeeGees) Stayin' alive.
Now you've sampled all five.
So let’s review: Earth.
(Audience) Earth.
Fire!
(Audience) Fire!
Water.
(Audience) Water.
Metal!
(Audience) Metal!
Air.
(Audience) Air.
And you know, here’s the thing:
Each of these voices are just perfect and just terrible,
depending on the situation, right?
There is not one voice that works in all circumstances.
In the chaos and distraction of these times, have you noticed
how hard it is to connect with other people?
Having access to all five sounds
will give you the opportunity to communicate with more people
about more things more effectively.
You'll have more choices in your voice.
Now before I end, I want to say just a few words about our collective voice.
As important as it is for you to find your own individual voice,
you need to remember that we are part of a living web of relationship.
Group singing can teach us so much about how to live and work well together.
It breaks us out of our insular little worlds
and gives us a visceral feeling of belonging.
I’ll have a chance to sample that experience in just a second.
To free the voice is to free the person.
I know that is the absolute truth.
I have witnessed it over and over again.
I hope you will set your full voice free to express your gifts in this world
and that you will hear the support of this community singing you onward as you do.
(Music)
(Singing) May you breathe easy, may your heart be light,
may you open your life to each joy, each delight.
May you walk with assurance that your way is blessed,
may you dwell in the Spirit of yes.
Here we go: one word -- one note, give it all you have.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
(Music stops)
(Laughter)
(Applause) (Cheers)